Bucknam, Razorbacks Take Bronze At SEC Meet

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The 8th-ranked Arkansas men’s track and field team took third-place at the Southeastern Conference Outdoor Championships Sunday, finishing the weekend with 99-points highlighted by a title from Kemar Mowatt in the 400-meter hurdles on the final day of action.

“Our kids fought really hard,” said head coach Chris Bucknam. “We put 99-points on the board. It’s documented the guys we have missing, but we were still in the mix and fighting until the very end. I’m very proud of our team and the efforts our guys made all weekend. The guys put everything they had in it, we just came up short.”

The men’s 4-x-100-meter relay of Ejiakuekwu, Mowatt, Harris, and Cotton started the meet with a bang, finishing runner-up in an extremely close finish. The margin of victory for LSU was five one-hundredths of a second over Arkansas who posted an identical time of 38.76 seconds.

Following a protest of yesterday’s prelim, the final of the men’s 1,500-meters featured 20 student-athletes competing for precious points. Arkansas advanced two to the final of the event and yielded points on each entry. Cameron Griffith hung tight for a runner-up finish running 3:47.02 while Jack Bruce finished fifth in the race crossing the finish line in 3:48.00.

Next on the track for Arkansas were the men’s 110-meter hurdles featuring Larry Donald. Donald finished fifth with a wind-legal personal-best time of 13.87 that fell two one-hundredths of a second off his all-conditions best of 13.85w set at the Michael Johnson Invitational in Waco, Texas.

Obi Igbokwe got out hard in the men’s 400-meter final, leading through 300-meters before fading to a seventh-place finish in 45.86.

Cotton returned to the track for finals in the men’s 100-meters (10.24) and the 200-meters (25.46) finishing seventh and eighth, respectively. Cotton was joined in the final of the 200-meters by teammate Igbokwe who finished sixth at 20.52.

Kemar Mowatt locked up the title in the men’s 400-meter hurdles making it back-to-back SEC championships for the senior from St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. Mowatt traversed the 10-barrier race in a brisk 49.32 seconds. Teammate Larry Donald finished eighth in 52.91.